


give me some time (i'm living in twilight)

by hepsybeth



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, Louisiana, M/M, i might add other characters, i'm really writing this as a distraction from my other thing but i needed to write something lol, i've never written fluff before so while i hestitate to tag it as such, this is set in an ambiguous future date idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-02-17 06:46:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hepsybeth/pseuds/hepsybeth
Summary: in which Eugene can Heal people with a touch and Babe can See dead people





	1. Chapter 1

The facts were these: One Eugene Gilbert Roe, an unassuming and soft-spoken Cajun, 22 years, 15 weeks, 4 days, had the strange, and entirely inexplicable, ability to Heal.

If he were ever asked, and he never was, he’d be at a lost to state the date it had come to him. There were no banners and no fireworks, no migraines and no stomachaches. Perhaps it was always there, in the back of his mind somewhere, waiting to be activated. If he ever felt particularly imaginative about it, especially when he was younger, he’d concoct a story about himself that maybe he was some sort of Superman, adrift on a foreign planet as a newborn with only his strange ability to serve as evidence.

It could’ve been something he ate.

Eugene wasn’t a doctor and wasn’t sure if he wanted to be one. Medical school costed more than he could afford and what could he learn from medical school that he hadn’t already experienced. He was good at Healing, even if it hurt.

This was because his Healing wasn’t just any other run-of-the-mill healing. Anything the victim under his hands suffered, he would suffer. It didn’t matter what the injury was. The transfer of a toothache would leave his patient smiling and him clutching his jaw until the pain subdued. The stab-wound left behind by a sharp knife would piece itself back together in real time and Eugene would look down to see blood blossoming through his shirt. A crushed foot would cause him to stumble to the ground and a papercut would incite a hiss from his teeth.

If he were ever asked why he kept on Healing, he’d explain that it’s his purpose, despite his own uncertainty of what a singular purpose implied. As he learned from Church, every person on the planet was created for a reason. He was fairly certain his “reason” was to Heal other people. So, it was painful. Bruises that he took needed only seconds to Heal on him and even gunshot wounds took at most a couple of hours to magically stitch back together. If it meant that he could help other people it was worth it.

When he was a boy, shortly after discovering that he could do what he did, he happily went to tell his grandmother who was a _traiteuse._ However, after describing what his Healing entailed, that he would ache and bleed where others ached and bled, she sharply brushed away his inquiries with a wave of her old pale hand.

“ _Mon cher petit-garçon_ ,” she began, taking his small warm hands into her larger and colder ones. “ _Ce n'est pas un présent de Dieu._ ”

 _Traiteurs_ didn’t take the wounds upon their own body. Eugene could Heal, yes, but he was something different entirely.

Why he was different was a question he had tried answering for himself, but he supposed that somethings just happened. There weren’t always answers and there was nothing wrong with that.

So, despite not being a _traiteur_ , he would still go around and Heal wherever and whenever he could. When he was younger, he would heal struggling animals hit by cars. At school, he would heal his flu-ridden friends and explain away his momentarily bright red nose as the result of rubbing his nose too hard. With a touch, he would Heal strangers at the park who would scrape their knee by simply offering his hand to help them up. And as he limped away, he was satisfied simply by the fact that the stranger could go on running without issue. Eugene preferred to help people in a way that they wouldn’t even notice and he was completely fine with that.

Eugene Healed like he breathed and he never found any problems with it.

That is, until the day he happened upon a man he couldn’t Heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story title doesn't stand for anything significant. my phone was on shuffle and i listen to old 70s music (in this case, "telephone line" my elo)
> 
> also, this is little more than a brain fart/writing exercise imo which i'm gonna continue because that's my early new years resolution. i need to finish things i start lol
> 
> the next chapter's about babe!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all about Babe "I can see dead people" Heffron

The facts were these: One Edward “Babe” Heffron, a loud and easily excitable redhead, 21 years, 4 weeks, 3 days, had an unusual, and mostly annoying, ability to See dead people.

Babe knew the exact date and hour when he first saw something that was otherworldly in every way: two days after his eleventh birthday at six o’clock. He had been walking back home, still dripping water after swimming in the lake nearby, when he Saw a woman walking in his general direction. The woman appeared to be shivering despite the unrelenting heat of the late spring sun shining down on them.

Babe had attempted to greet the woman, especially since he usually came across the same people all the time in his South Philly neighborhood. He had developed something of an eye for faces. However, this lady in particular was strange. Her black hair fell past her waist and he long skirt stopped right above her bare feet. The hem of the skirt was covered in mud as though she had been walking for a long time through God knew what.

He had tried to greet her again. The woman was doing something odd. Her pale hands were clutching her throat and bright blue eyes seemed to stare right at him. A chill ran down his spine and he had the sort of feeling that something wasn’t quite right about this woman. And that feeling didn’t go away at all when she removed her hands from her neck, releasing streams and streams of dark red liquid.

Babe was only just eleven, so he remembered running away, screaming for help. He tripped on his own feet trying to knock down someone’s door, nastily scraping up his knees in the process. Managing to snag the owner of the deli who lived two houses over, a Mr. O’Bannion, he nearly collapsed to his feet when the older man explained that he didn’t see a woman, much less a woman who was bleeding, still bleeding, from a slit throat.

Mr. O’Bannion eventually walked away, shaking his head at what he probably thought were the antics of an overexcited youth, and Babe was left alone with the woman who was still bleeding, a shocked expression frozen on her face.

“I’m looking for my sister,” she began, a breathy voice that Babe could only best describe as cold. And sad. “Can you help me?” The blood continued to pour down her neck into the front of her previously mint green shirt.

“How the fuck are you talking with a fucked up throat!” Babe demanded, still freaked out but at least rationalizing that he might be the only one who could see this particular person. Mr. O’Bannion was as sharp as a tack and the most level-headed old guy he knew. If he didn’t see a woman, either Babe was a little crazy or Babe was a lot crazy.

He’d go with “a little crazy” for now.

Babe breathed deeply and began again. “Who’s your sister? She gotta name?”

“I’m looking for my sister. Can you help me?”

“I can’t fucking help you if you don’t give me a name.” At this point, Babe had put his fingers over his eyes because he couldn’t take the constant sight of the woman’s blood. “Please give me a name.”

The woman paused for a moment. The moment seemed to last for a long time and the air surrounding Babe seemed to grow colder. So cold that Babe began to shiver, the whole encounter that he had causing him to forget that he was still wet in some places after coming back from the lake.

Before Babe could ask again, the woman answered with one word. “Isadore.” And with that, she disappeared.

Newly energized, Babe suddenly realized that he wasn’t one to shy away from a good mystery. Although he was still shaken from the woman and the way she vanished, the next days after, he went from door to door, newspaper clipping to agonizingly long phone calls. He felt compelled to find “Isadore”, more compelled than he usually felt when it came to anything else.

And all throughout, he would See the woman at the corner of his eyes. During school, trips to the candy store, games at the ballpark, he was never left alone. It was kind of annoying familiarity, almost like a stray dog following him everywhere just because you decided to give it the time of day. Except this “dog” was a woman maybe in her 30s with a blood-stained blouse and a cold slit throat.

Eventually, one tip led to another, and “Isadore” became “Celia Isadore”, the sister of a woman who had died from a slit throat over forty years ago, murderer still unknown. Celia Isadore was now a sixty-year-old woman with orange hair who was a teacher at a high school nearby. Her murdered sister, Bertha, was in her thirties at the time of her death and had lived near to where Babe’s home currently stood. She had been found in a pool of blood with a knife in her hand, such a gruesome scene ruled as a suicide committed by an unstable woman.

Whispers here and there gave him a name and Babe built up all the courage an eleven-year-old could muster in order to knock on the door of a certain Celia Isadore and tell her all that he knew.

His efforts earned him a door slammed in his freckled face before he threatened to break the door down if she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

It was still a rough conversation but, in the midst of it, Bertha had appeared, her blood finally dried and her shocked expression finally smoothed over.

Celia listened and understood, probably feeling something herself, and Babe went on his way undeniably changed by whatever he had just gone through.

And that’s how it continued ever since then. He would See a ghostly boy with a mangled chest, an elderly man with a bleeding hole in his head, a couple of teenage girls with torn clothes and shiny cheeks, among other lost souls. They all came, all with limited speech and whispered breath. Some would try and hold conversations while some would dissolve in the air if he so much as glared at them too hard. Some would move on as soon as he solved their murder while others continued to pester him, unwilling to leave. And, so, he grew with them, going through his life with ghosts poking up every other moment.

Babe decided he needed a change in environment, years after he finished high school. So he headed south in his busted car, sick of Seeing ghosts

That was, until he suffered an unfortunate car wreck and Saw a pale face with black hair at the corner of his darkening vision, staring down at him. He thought it was another ghost come to haunt him again.

Except, it was no ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, they meet (which'll be hard to write, but I'll power through it!)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eugene and Babe meet

Eugene heard the car crash before he actually saw the wreckage.

He had spent his day volunteering as a referee at a soccer match across the way. He hardly remembered a single thing about soccer, hadn’t played it since elementary school and hadn’t watched it on tv ever. The only thing he did understand was that he would get paid for making sure kids didn’t start fights with the other team (or pick fights with him, for that matter). Turns out, kids are notorious for getting into accidents during a soccer game. At the end of the game, Eugene was dead on his feet from Healing so many accident-prone children. He just wanted to collapse onto his mattress. Maybe eat some boudin if there was any.

That had been his plan before the car crash.

Before he processed it, Eugene was running towards the car, relieved that he couldn’t see signs of smoke but what did he know about car crashes? Everyone who lived near him in greater Acadiana dealt with plenty of road problems, but were still able to manage them with ease. He hadn’t seen a car crash in years.

“You need help?” he asked.

_Of course, he needs help_ , he thought.

“You hurt?” he asked.

_Of course, he’s hurt_ , he thought.

“Get me the fuck outta this, huh!” a voice yelled from inside the upside-down car. Eugene crouched and peeked through the window and the first thing he saw was bright red hair, which slowly registered as being attached to a freckled head. Blood ran down the side of his head, although flipped upside down. If the man suffered any injuries, Eugene couldn’t immediately tell, besides the head wound, of course. All he could hear was the man scream out a stream of colorful phrases, some even Eugene didn’t know (and he knew quite a few).

“Hold on,” Eugene said over the man’s tirade. Eugene stood up and looked around for anyone who happened to be close-by, a futile hope since today was a Sunday and everyone and their mother was at Mass. He crouched back down and peeked back inside. “You still with me?”

“Oh, what, you think I fucking moved from this position?” the redheaded man asked angrily. “Fucking dumb ghost.”

_What?_ “What do you mean, “ghost”?”

The man paused, glaring at him in thought. Then he shook his head, as best he could, like he changed his mind. “Nevermind. It’s nothing. Not a ghost.”

“I was just wondering if you’d gone unconscious.” _Or if the blood had really gone to your brain._

“I’m still fucking awake, thanks for asking!”

Eugene sighed, thinking quickly. “Ok, you’re gonna want to take your seatbelt off.”

He heard the sound of the man cursing and moving around before he heard a clicking sound and a loud “Fuck” following right after.

“You ok?”

“I hit my fucking head!”

“That’s ok for now. I’ll take care of that,” Eugene frowned in thought. “Now, you’re gonna want to crawl outta your window. I’ll pull you out once your halfway out and you’ll feel much better.”

“Why would I feel any better?”

Eugene sighed again. He was so tired. “Just trust me. You’re in good hands.”

Babe followed his instruction, hissing in pain as he did, and reached an arm out the window before following it with his head.

Like he had promised, Eugene grabbed his hand, willing his ability to Heal the man.

Except, nothing happened.

He pushed it again, feeling it burning hot on his fingertips. But where it was supposed to pass from him to the man, there was something preventing it from going.

Eugene tried not to worry. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way for now.

He tried to not think about how weird that was.

Eugene grabbed his hand, and started pulling the man out. It sounded like the man cut himself on something, so he screamed in pain.

“ _Mo chagren_ ,” Eugene said under his breath, wincing on the man’s behalf.

“What?”

“Sorry.” Sorry that he man was in pain, sorry that he couldn’t, for some reason, take the pain away.

It took some time, but Eugene finally pulled the man out of the car. He laid the man down on the past the curb and on the sparse grass. The man groaned as he was put on the ground. He raised his hand to his head and lightly touched the bleeding wound on his face. He grimaced when he pulled his fingers away and squinted at the blood on his fingers.

“Blood,” he said in an annoyed tone.

“Blood,” Eugene agreed. He looked around again. He didn’t have any mode of transportation, not even one of those bulky phones that people were carrying around nowadays. His place was further away, the nearest hospital even further. The closest person he could think of was Renée, but that still entailed the whole dragging the man along with him.

He was so, so tired.

“I have a friend not too far from here,” he explained. “Not far at all. She’s a doctor. Well,” he shrugged. “Almost a doctor.” He looked down at the man who was laying down and staring at the sky. “Do you need help getting up, or—”

“What? No.” The man groaned loudly as he tried to get to his feet. He coughed loudly and stumbled, though he apparently needed no help considering he kept on brushing away Eugene’s hand. “I’m fine,” he finally said, on his feet. He rubbed at his eyes and squinted again at his upside-down mustard yellow car. “My fucking car!”

“How’d you crash it?” Eugene asked. The redhead was the only one on the road, unless there was someone else who was long gone by the time Eugene turned around.

“Fucking ghosts,” was the man’s reply.

“Okay,” Eugene said, unable to conjure up a single thing to say to that. He held up three fingers in front of the man’s face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“It looks like six, but you only have one hand raised,” the redhead said. He wiped away some blood from the side of his head. “Process of elimination says it’s three.”

“But you don’t see only three.”

“No.” He paused. “That’s not too good, huh?”

“Can’t say it is.”

“Which way to your doctor friend, then?”

Eugene pointed down the road. “A distance down there is all. Now, you just got out of a car wreck. There ain’t anything I can do for your car, but I can, at the very least, make sure nothing else happens to you. Put your arm around my shoulder.”

“What?”

“I ain’t gonna have you fall on the way to Renée’s. Put your arm around my shoulder. It’ll keep you steady.”

The man rolled his eyes, or as best he could with a banged-up head, and placed an arm around Eugene’s shoulder. They began walking down the sidewalk in silence.

“What’s your name?” The man asked, breaking the silence.

“Eugene,” replied Eugene. “Eugene Roe. Welcome to Morgan City.”

“I’m Edward Heffron, but call me Babe,” the redhead, Babe, insisted. “What the fuck is there to do in Morgan City?”

“If you don’t know what to do here, what are you doing here?”

“I got lost.”

“Is that it?” Eugene said, and he shook his head while Babe began to tell him about his ride down here from a place called South Philly. And all the while, Eugene realized that there was something strange about this man that he couldn’t Heal and he was going to find out what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is going to have alternating povs. Like the next one will be Babe's pov, then Eugene, and so on and so forth.  
> Also, I may or may not add Guarnere because he's from South Philly and Eugene has Renee (on the basis that they're both kinda french)
> 
> Also also, I have no idea about car crash statistics in Louisiana, but people in my family from Southern Louisiana drive Really Fast, but have never been in any accidents ever. So, yeah.
> 
> Also also also, I'm very familiar with Cajun English (half my family is from Acadiana and it's a dialect and accent that I can understand but, Sadly!, can't verbally replicate, but) I can write it just fine and I'm gonna write it a lot. I might not know any French (or South Philly dialect stuff), but that's what research is for, y'all!
> 
> Also also also also, thanks for all the reviews so far and Merry Christmas Eve!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a wild Renée appears (and a wild Guarnere is mentioned)

Babe had been lost when he crashed his car.

Now that he was seeing double, he was even more lost than he had been before.

Who was this Renée? What was going to happen to his car? What the fuck was there to do in Morgan City?

Babe was beyond sure that he wouldn’t have gotten into an accident if a ghost hadn’t shown up in the middle of the road. It was a young-looking fellow who had big dark eyes and dark brown hair sticking in all directions. However, it was different from the other ghosts he had seen before. Sure, there were the trademark wounds that depicted its cause of death (namely the blood it seemed to be coughing up), but it was different. The ghost looked…transparent. That was the best way Babe could describe it. Of all the ghosts he had ever seen, none of them had ever been transparent. It was never like the movies, with their white sheets and floating and transparent-ness. They were all fairly solid in appearance.

Which was why he mistook this Eugene person for the ghost he had seen. That had been close; there were only two people in the entire world who knew about Babe’s Sight: Babe and his pal Bill Guarnere. No one else needed to know.

At the moment, Babe’s head was throbbing and he gripped Eugene’s shoulder tightly as they continued to walk and walk and walk under the burning Southern sun.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“How about now?”

“It’s only been a second, Edward.”

“It’s ‘Babe’. And a lot can change in a second.”

Eugene hummed in response.

“What kinda name is Eugene? Sounds like a name an eighty-year-old would have.”

“I know another Eugene. It’s not that uncommon. And eighty-year-old men were once young.”

“You talk old.”

“Edward—”

“ _Babe_ ,” he said. “My head’s killing me. How’s about I call you ‘Gene’?”

“Fine with me.”

They eventually made it to a neighborhood and then to a small yellow house. Soft music and a female voice singing in a language Babe couldn’t understand trickled out the window. He guessed it was French considering where he was.

Once the two reached the front door, Gene rapped the door a few times. “ _Bonjou? C'est Eugène. Et un ami.”_

The singing stopped and the front door opened. Babe looked up and saw a woman (or, more accurately, two images of her) with wavy blonde hair done up in a half ponytail. She wore blue overalls and had soap suds up to her elbows. She smiled, a very pretty smile, and kissed Gene on both cheeks. Babe supposed this was Renée. “ _Bonjour! Bonjour! Et ton ami?”_

“His name is Edward and he doesn’t speak French.”

“Edward,” Renée said in a heavy French accent. She went to kiss Babe and Babe held out his hand for her to shake instead. She gave Gene a quizzical look and Gene shrugged. She shook Babe’s hand with an amused smile.

“I’m Babe,” Babe said, emphasizing the ‘Babe’ part. “And I don’t speak French.”

“So I’m told,” Renée said in a laughing tone. “Come in and I’ll fix up your head prepare a meal.” She walked back inside and gestured for the two men to follow her.

Babe was pretty sure many features of the house were getting muddled in his head since he couldn’t process things as fast as he would like while his head was spinning, but it seemed very cozy. Although it was hot outside, it was a nice cool temperature inside, with a blue fan lazily turning overhead. While the house was yellow on the outside, it had lavender and periwinkle colored walls on the inside. There were a few worn sofas and folded blankets on top of them. To the left of the front door was the opening of a room in which Babe could make out a small tv with the MTV logo on the screen. Potted plants covered nearly every hard surface and the air in the house smelled like lemon.

It held such a homey feel that Babe wanted to instantly fall asleep.

He must have been nodding off because Gene roughly shoved his shoulder. “Oh no you don’t. You’ve more than likely sustained a concussion. You hit your head bad bad.”

“He had a concussion?” Renée asked, wetting a hand towel under the kitchen faucet.

“I’ve been concussed.” Babe held onto Gene’s shoulder as Gene helped him onto a sofa. He leaned his head back. “That’s a word, right? Concussed?”

“Not sure. Maybe.” Gene decided. He headed towards the kitchen as Babe closed his eyes.

It couldn’t have been longer than a second before Babe’s shoulder was nudged was forced to open his eyes to a frowning Renée. “Don’t sleep yet,” she explained simply before beginning to wipe the blood off his head. “Concussions have many symptoms and I’m just going to ask you a few questions, yes?”

“Sure.”

“Do you have a headache?”

“I was in a car accident.”

“Edward, just make her job easier.” Gene returned from the purple-colored kitchen with a glass of water and a spoon full of a thick oily-looking liquid. Babe grimaced despite himself.

“Yes, I have a headache.”

From what seemed like nowhere, Renée brought up a small flashlight and ordered Babe to look into its light. “To check your dilation,” she explained. She peered into his eyes and Babe tried his hardest to not look away from the light.

"Does the light hurt?" Renée asked.

Gene gave him a look before he answered something "unhelpful".

"No, it doesn't hurt."

Eventually, she turned it off. “Your eyes are fine. Do you feel nauseous.”

“I don’t feel nauseous. I’m hungry and I broke my car.”

“Take this,” Gene said. “Water is supposed to help with these things I’ve heard.”

Babe drank the water in slow gulps. Finished, he looked at the spoon of oil Gene held. "What's that?"

"Fish oil."

"Fish oil?"

"Trust me."

Babe leveled him with a stare and took the spoon, swallowing it in one go but sticking his tongue out at the flavor of it. "And this is gonna make me feel better?"

"Yes," said Renée and Gene together. 

"Shouldn't I be going to a doctor?"

"I'm almost a doctor," Renée said, brushing her blonde hair over her ear. "I know enough to treat a concussion and this won't cost you anything."

Babe marveled at the idea. He couldn't believe that two people he had never met before would just take a stranger into their home and help them, even if it was at the cost of drinking weird oil. "Thank you."

Renée blushed. "It was no problem at all."

Babe adjusted himself on the sofa. He rested an arm on an armrest and cleared his throat. "Thanks to both of you."

A strange look passed through Gene's eyes, but he smiled and nodded. "You need anything else?"

"Yeah. A new a car."

"I can't promise you that," Gene said, his hand running though his short black hair. "But you're probably gonna see much more of Morgan City than you planned to."

"Nothing interesting happening today?"

"Besides coming across you earlier this afternoon," Gene began, collapsing a sofa across from Babe. "Nothing interesting happening today, no."

Babe felt his own eyelids getting heavier by the moment and Renée softly told him that, since he wasn't showing any of the more severe symptoms, sleeping was completely fine. And with her okay, Babe let sleep take him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone!!!
> 
> I'll probably post 2 chapters today when I have time, but I'm terrible at ending chapters lol.The next chapter will focus on eugene and renée


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, the thing is I meant to post another chapter on Christmas and it's the thought that counts
> 
> I literally have to set plot for this and hopefully one comes because I want to include a few more characters. 
> 
> I hope y'all had a good Christmas!!!

Eugene was in the other room, half-watching Cyndi Lauper sing about all the fun girls wanted to have and half-having a crisis about his Healing, when he heard a crashing sound come from the room that he left Babe in after the redhead woke him up from his nap because of how loud he was snoring.

He couldn’t even be sure what he was dreaming about before his nap ended prematurely. Only trivial things surfaced: the color red, the chill of winter, and the smell of chocolate. Nothing concrete. Maybe he had only started dreaming when he had been interrupted by the sound of what he thought was a lawnmower.

Of course, if wasn’t a lawnmower.  It was just the redhead’s mouth.

And he was still so tired.

“You need some help there?” Eugene asked once he got to the room. Babe was a tangled mess on the floor, wrapped tightly in the blanket Renée had left for him after he had fallen to sleep. Apparently, Babe fell off his bed and woke up from that.

“No, I’m fine.” Babe struggled to get to his feet, waving away with his only free hand all attempts to help that Eugene offered him. “I’m good.”

“How’s your head?”

“Never better.” Babe was finally at his feet. He held the brown blanket in his hands and started folding it. “I’m starving. What’s that smell?”

“It’s food, Edward. Genuine Cajun cuisine. That’s what we have in Morgan City.” After Babe had fallen asleep, and before Eugene had started watching whatever it was that was playing on MTV, Renée had tasked herself with fixing up dinner.

An important thing to understand about Renée Lemaire is that, competent, even prodigious, as she was at various other things, she was downright terrible at cooking. She couldn’t cook to “save her life” as one might say. If she made cookies, she might mistake 1 cup of salt for 1 cup of sugar. If she made lemonade, the sour to sweet ratio would somehow leave much to be desired. If she cooked soup, it was either too bitter or too spicy, even for Eugene. The only things she was good at making were pancakes, and she diversified them as best she could. Blueberry pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, ham and bacon pancakes, apple and cinnamon pancakes. The more random they were, the better they were. However, given that there was a guest in the house, and the only other person who lived there was sleeping, Renée decided to make something different for dinner: simple rice and gravy.

Nevermind that the gravy tasted bland and the rice was too hard, but Renée insisted that it was perfectly fine and that Eugene needed to stop bothering her.

“ _La sauce est bonne_ ,” Eugene had told her, genuine surprise in his voice because the gravy actually tasted decent. But because of his upbringing, he added a little suggestion. “ _Un petit peu de piment fera mieux_.”

Renée tasted it again herself and made a face, quickly agreeing with her housemate. Then, she had shooed him away telling him to go and watch over Babe.

Eugene didn’t watch over Babe. He went to watch MTV to distract himself from the crisis he was having because that was a lot healthier, of course.

Babe followed Eugene into the kitchen and they both washed their hands at the sink. The kitchen was neither lavender or periwinkle; it was painted a unique color of a pinkish-orange, a color that Eugene hadn’t particularly been fond of when Renée brought home the paint cans that day, but it grew on him. It reminded him of a sunset.

The kitchen walls held various decorations, considering Renée couldn’t choose just one and she despised bare walls. The black, gold, and red flag of Belgium was pinned above the oven (Eugene pinned a Cajun flag beside it because that was equality) and a framed portrait of a lion smoking a cigar, a weird find that Renée found in a consignment shop, was placed above the sink. A La Grand-Place photograph was next to the window—it wasn’t like Renée was even from Brussels, but iconic symbols are iconic symbols—and various Fluer-de-lis stickers— courtesy of Eugene— and rooster stickers—courtesy of Renée—were pasted in a haphazard way every which way. It was kind of tacky, but it had personality.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Renée told Babe. She took him by the shoulder and practically forced him down into the chair. Babe smiled at this. “I successfully made dinner and we’re going to enjoy it.”  She glared at Eugene like she expected him to argue this point, at which he rolled his eyes.

“I’m sure I’ll love it. I told Gene already, but I’m totally starved.” Babe eyed the pots on the counter. “So, uh, what’s cookin’?”

“Rice and gravy. Some fruit in the fridge.”

“Is it spicy?”

“Spicy?” Eugene asked.

“I’ve read things,” Babe said. “Things like food down here is super spicy.”

“I don’t know about ‘super spicy’, but if you’ve never had this before, don’t rush yourself or anything.” Eugene concluded. He wasn’t the best judge of what was ‘too spicy’ since pepper was in virtually everything he ate. He looked at Renée for help, and she shrugged while pouring the gravy onto the rice in the plates she had set aside around the stove. “Take your time I guess.”

Eugene didn’t blame himself for what happened next, but at least no one could say that Babe didn’t have any warning.

Once the plate of rice and gravy was set before him, Babe was all smiles. Seconds after Babe ate a forkful of the food, his face turned red and Eugene could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears.

“Fuck!” cried Babe.

“Calm down,” Eugene said, calmly eating the rice and gravy. It wasn’t spicy enough to warrant all that.

“It’s _hot!_ ”

“It’s not hot hot.” Eugene stifled a laugh as the redhead started drinking the glass of water in front of him. He scolded himself for taking amusement in this.

“It’s so hot, man. Jesus Christ.”

Renée was laughing into her own glass of water. Innocent bystander she was _not_.

“Look,” Eugene started. “Just take some deep breaths, okay? The pepper won’t last forever and water won’t do a damn thing.”

Babe was panting like a dog. Eugene couldn’t remember seeing anything that pathetic in his life. But, he supposed, not everyone’s palate was as cultured as his.

Wow, he sounded like Renée.

After maybe thirty seconds of Babe breathing, the redhead sighed and pushed his plate away. “I’m sorry you had to cook that, Renée, but I think I’m gonna stick to some fruit.”

“I’ll get that for you,” Renée said. Babe insisted that he could get it himself, that she had done enough, but Renée made the point that Babe had had an extremely bad day and that it was the least she could do. As she stood up to go open the fridge, she asked Babe, “What kind of food are you used to?”

“Well, see,” Babe began. He leaned back on his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m from South Philly. We’ve got stuff like cheesesteak, funnel cake, stromboli, scrapple—”

“Scrapple?” Renée asked. She walked back to the table and handed Babe a couple of green apples and placed a third green apple next to her plate. She stood up again to get a knife from a drawer. “Like the board game?”

“No, that’s ‘Scrabble’,” Babe corrected her. “I’m talking about scrapple. It’s like liver and pork and cornmeal all mushed together and fried.”

“What?” Renée was astonished.

“I usually eat it with ketchup.”

Eugene must have made a face because Babe smirked. “Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. And, a plus to scrapple, it's not some dangerous food that tries to burn my tongue off.”

Eugene shook his chuckled. “So, South Philly, huh? You’re a long way from home.”

“Don’t I know it,” Babe said. “So, you’re both from here? Morgan City?”

“No,” Eugene and Renée said together.

“I’m from Bastogne, Belgium. I moved here to study medicine,” Renée explained. “Not that I couldn’t have done it back home, but I wanted to be somewhere far from Bastogne.”

“What’s wrong with Bastogne?” Babe asked.

Renée appeared to consider the question and rather than say anything that truly explained her actions, so she settled on, “It’s cold there. It's warm here.”

“Oh, ok.”

“I’m from here, more or less,” Eugene said around a mouthful of food. “Never been outside the state, much less the country.” His fork clattered against his clean plate and he stood up to get some more, but he first asked Babe something. “Are you planning on finishing your plate?”

“What, this?” Babe gestured at the practically untouched rice and gravy. “Keep it, please. I love apples.”

Eugene took his plate and started on round two.

They ate for a while after that. Babe chatted up a storm about the landscapes and tourist traps he had come about cross on his way south. He likened himself to those pioneers of old, except the paths before him were already established. Eugene argued that that was the very antithesis of what antithesis pioneer was and Babe told him to shut up. Renée told stories of her own, things she had seen and come across on her way to Louisiana. The two joked and laughed and even Eugene relaxed in the pleasant atmosphere. It hardly seemed like Babe was a stranger with the way he had seamlessly engaged them in conversation like he had known them for years. 

It couldn't have been that much later when Renée yelped in pain. Eugene turned his head and saw blood dripping from Renée’s hand, the knife she had been using to cut her apple fell to the floor below. Her pale face was pinched in pain and she hissed as the cut stung. “ _Putain!”_

Instinctively, Eugene took her hand. He was scared that his Healing was gone, as it hadn’t worked on Babe. However, that fear was quickly replaced by confusion when pain began pulsing in his left hand and Renée began thanking him. Eugene took a napkin and started dabbing at the blood on his hand coming from the cut that was quickly mended.

Eugene looked up, only just realizing that that had happened in front of Babe. Now it was his time to turn red.

Babe was wide-eyed, looking from Eugene to Renée back to Eugene. “What the _fuck?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm totally going back and writing this shit because a lot of stuff is sudden and I'm not great at transitions, but I'm going to finish a fic if it kills me, even if it's pretty crappy from the get go (and this is set in 1984 now I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/ ¯)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so this took longer than expected and I don' have much to show for it lol
> 
> also, I hope everyone had a great holiday and hopefully y'all are keeping warm (tbt when we had 70 degree weather in January!)
> 
> also, this is a Renée pov chapter, which I wasn't planning on but it still sorta happened anyway
> 
> and thanks for all the comments y'all have left so far!!! it means a lot!!

The facts were these: One Renée Bernadette Emilie Lemaire, a good-humored and hardworking soon-to-be-doctor, 25 years 3 months, 7 weeks, detested awkward situations.

They should’ve been careful, but things like that are swiftly forgotten in the event of injuries in the Lemaire-Roe household. It wasn’t that uncommon for Renée to suffer cuts and bruises over the course of a typical day. A nail sticking out of the floor here, a stumble down the stairs there. She was foolhardy and generally tough, a trait she claimed was very Belgian, and would tend to brush it off if any injuries were fairly small. It was a weakness of hers, at least according to her friend Augusta Chiwy, that she wouldn’t easily admit failure, much less ask for help. Renée would try to carry very heavy things or say that there was no cause for concern as she used a rickety ladder to dust the top shelf in a random room. And when she fell or bruised or drew blood, as she eventually tended to do, Eugene would scold her as a brother would do to a sister, and heal her as quick as he could.

That wasn’t to say that Eugene didn’t throw caution to the wind or do risky things himself (he most certainly did, even if he did possess a quiet demeanor, which typically assisted him in times he pulled petty pranks), but he didn’t physically suffer from it as much as she did.

So, it was instinctive, his grasping of Renée’s hand and willing it to Heal. But they both forgot that there was another person present.

“What the fuck?” Babe said again, staring at Eugene’s hand where a bleeding cut had opened without a knife and closed again without a bandage. Eugene pulled his hand away from the table and wiped the blood away on a napkin, gulping nervously and looking to Renée.

“How’d the hell you do that?” Babe asked. His green apple sat on the napkin in front of him, essentially forgotten. His eyes were wide and he made a vague pointing motion at Eugene. “What was that?”

“Calm down,” Renée said calmly.

“ _Calm down_?” asked Babe, not calmly.

Eugene tapped his other hand nervously on the table, looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere but there. Renée decided to step in. “Babe,” she began, “Some people are good at whistling. Some people have a knack for predicting the weather. Eugene can Heal people,” she finished, emphasizing the word “heal”. "So, calm down. Please."

Something in Babe’s eyes changed at those words. Despite that, he muttered, “Whistling and predicting the weather is a lot different than magically Healing somebody.” He paused. “Is this a Louisiana thing?”

“A Louisiana thing?” Eugene deadpanned.

“Like voodoo and other creepy shit.”

Renée didn’t need to look to know that Eugene was rolling his eyes. She wiggled her fingers in the air and made a ghostly booing sound to Eugene's annoyance.

“It’s not voodoo, no. And voodoo isn’t any more creepy than anything else, Edward.” Eugene sighed as if he were contemplating something. “I’m what’s called a _traiteur,_ me. I heal people through prayer.”

_“Menteur_ ,” Renée said into her glass of water and Eugene discreetly kicked her under the table.

Babe’s eyes furrowed. “You were praying?”

“Yes,” Eugene answered.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“I’m really fast at praying.”

Babe gave a small snort, shaking his head slightly. “Ok, sure.”

“Well, it’s a Louisiana thing,” Eugene said, a small smile forming on his lips. “Some of us are just special like that.”

It was now Renée’s turn to roll her eyes. She bit into a slice of her apple.

“Uh-huh.” Babe nodded in deep thought and then grabbed his apple. After taking a large bite out of it, and while he was still chewing, he asked, “Hey, can I use the phone? I need to let a friend know where I am and tell him about the car I totaled.”

“You’re not gonna start babbling about magical Healing, are you?” Eugene asked, jokingly. Renée knew that it was in good humor, but that he didn’t want what he could do being broadcasted. It was a small fear of his, people finding out what he could do and how he did it. Eugene preferred to help from the outside, not ever wanting to be the center of attention for anything, much less this.

Babe surprisingly seemed to understand this. He shrugged. “We all got our secrets, dude. Still, it’s pretty gnarly what you can do. You probably help a lot of people and shit with that, right?”

Eugene smiled, a full smile on his face now and ears turning red at the tips. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Uh, right, you need a phone. It’s hanging right outside the hall. You passed it on the way here.” As he said this, Eugene pointed down the hallway just for some visual directions.

Babe said a quick “thanks” and left the kitchen. Once he was gone, Renée shook her head slowly. “Eugene, Eugene, Eugene.” Renée watched her now red-faced housemate start shoveling rice into his mouth.

“What?” he asked around a mouthful of rice.

“ _Tu n'es pas un traiteur_.”

Eugene took a second to swallow. “He doesn’t know that. He’ll just chalk it up to some ‘creepy Louisiana shit’ and move on.”

“Ok,” Renée said. She leaned back on her chair, nearly dangerously so. “I hope this doesn’t blow up in your face, as you like to say.”

“ _Tuat t'en grosse bueche_ ,” was all Eugene said in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should've been doing this the whole time, but "Tu n'es pas un traiteur" is "You're not a traiteur" and "Menteur" means "Liar" and "Tuat t'en grosse bueche" is basically used to say "Shut up" in Cajun French (granted, I found that on some old-looking website, and I can't fact check with my Papaw atm, so take that with a grain of salt).
> 
> Also, Eugene uses lots of double negatives in his sentences, and that's not be using wrong grammar. That's just a Cajun way of speaking that I've noticed from my family.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter wild bill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's...been a while, huh
> 
> i've had school and junk, and just generally being lazy lol. anyway, i hope that y'all enjoy this chapter!

The facts were these: One William “Bill” Guarnere, wise-cracking and loud-mouthed, _oobatz_ if you will, 21 years, 6 weeks, 7 days, tended to have a very good sense of timing as a result of having grown up with resident disaster Babe Heffron.

So, although he was in the middle of trying to clean out the burnt remains of a failed meal out of the oven, only blackened char as anything to show the baked ziti he was trying to make, and although he tended to ignore most phone calls when he was in the middle of something important, he still felt as though this call might be important in some way.

His house phone was in the next room over and Bill’s hands were still covered in dark grime, and reeking with an unholy mixture of burnt cheese and citrus cleaner, while it rang. He reached for a close paper towel and wiped his hands quickly as he headed to the next room when the ringing ended. Soon as it was done, however, the phone began to ring again and Bill was now there to answer whoever it was.

Then again, he had a pretty good idea who it was.

He would bet good money on who it was that was calling.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Bill began after he picked up the phone. “But this wouldn’t happen to be an Edward Heffron calling, would it?”

“Bill, look—”

“Because I remember a certain Edward Heffron swearing up and down, on his mother no less, that he ain’t planning to do any calling while on that crazy adventure of his.”

“C’mon, Bill—”

“I’ve got it in writing somewhere. Edward Heffron saying he’s got absolutely everything under control.”

“Can you stop it with the Edward bullshit?” Babe said on the other end, sounding increasingly frustrated. “Look, Bill, I gotta tell you something.”

“It has something to do with the car, huh,” Bill guessed.

“It’s about…wait, how’d you know?”

“I didn’t! Fuck!” Bill pinched the bridge of his nose. “What happened to the car, Babe?”

“I might’ve, uh, sort of, probably crashed the car.”

Bill went silent and sighed. “Fuck. Look, are you okay, Babe? You hurt?”

“Probably a minor concussion but nothing fatal.”

“Good,” Bill said. “Because I’m coming down there, wherever you are, and kill you myself.”

“I’m sorry, Bill,” Babe said, actually sincerely sounding sorry.

Bill let his imagination get the best of him. The car that Babe took on his road trip to the South was a labor of love, an ugly and old yellow car that was left forgotten at some junkyard that the boys at fourteen had fallen in love with. Whether or not they fell in love with it because it was extremely inexpensive and their ticket outside of the city was left to debate (the boys liked a lot of things between the two of them, even things that others would call ugly). And they loved that car, fuck ugly color and all. They eventually paid for the 1960 Vendo Plymouth, and upon closer inspection, the two boys realized that the mustard color was a paintjob done later on, that the original color peeking underneath the peeling was actually an even uglier highlighter yellow.

Count your blessings, they supposed.

And while that car never ventured much outside of South Philly, they had their fun with it. And even though that car garnered more trouble than it was worth, whether it was through things just falling apart or having high schoolers make an announcement for “whoever owns that disgusting vehicle parked outside the gymnasium”, it was theirs and they loved it. They fixed it up and defended it and it was all worth it in the eyes of a couple of teenagers.

Eventually, Bill got a job and bought a much more decent car, but Babe was all for the sentimental and swore that he’d get a new car later, but for now he wouldn’t “fix what wasn’t broken”.

Bill remembered joking that the Vendo broke down if someone so much as looked at it wrong. He also remembered the stink eye he got from Babe after saying that.

And although he had moved on from that dumb car, he couldn’t help but mourn it. God knows what it went through in its final moments, skidding across the road, exposing even more of that highlighter color, dents upon dents upon dents.

“Yeah, well it was gonna fall apart eventually. It was barely holding it together as it was.”

Bill heard Babe hmm in agreement on the other end.

“Also, this is a great opportunity for you to finally go and get yourself a new fucking car.”

"Ha ha," Babe said dryly. "Anyway, what’re you doing right now? Did I interrupt something?”

“Nothing, just trying my hand at baked ziti.”

“How’d it turn out?” Babe asked, knowing full well that you couldn't trust Bill in the kitchen.

“It ain’t ‘baked ziti’. More like ‘burnt ziti’,” Bill said, thinking back to the sound of his alarm blaring across the house and how he had to run from the fucking toilet to the kitchen, greeted by the overwhelming sight and smell of smoke. “Crushed my pride a little, I ain’t gonna lie.”

“Sucks.”

“Was gonna be my dinner. I’m tryna impress Frances,” he said. Frances Peca was girl that Bill had met while volunteering as a coach at some little league game. She was there for her little brother, not that Bill had known that at the time, and he said something, she said something, and they hit it off. Today, Bill had been planning on treating her to a home cooked meal. And maybe Bill played up his cooking prowess a little, but he wasn’t expecting to burn the fucking baked ziti.

“Get her some takeout,” Babe suggested.

“Run that by me again?”

“Look,” Babe explained. “You like this girl, right? Well, if this girl you like stops liking you over some perfectly good Chinese takeout, then she needs to sort out her priorities.”

“I’m pretty sure your logic is wrong, Babe.”

“Then serve her whatever’s left of your ziti, Gonorrhea.”

“Shut up,” Bill said. “Anyway, where’re you staying? You’re good, right?”

“I’m staying with these two guys in Louisiana. I was headed to New Orleans, but I got lost—”

“And crashed the car.”

“And crashed the car, yeah. Thanks for the reminder.”

“No problem.”

“After that, this guy just happened to be walking there and got me out of the car and helped me to his place. They made me food and let me sleep on their couch everything.”

“Mind if I talk to one of them?”

“You’re like a dad, Bill, y’know that, right?”

“Get off the fucking phone, Babe, and let me talk to one of those guys.”

Bill decided to ignore what Babe muttered next and heard his muffled call to someone called “Eugene”, it sounded like.

“Hello,” said a different voice. “I’m Eugene Roe.”

“Bill Guarnere speaking,” said Bill. “I heard you been taking care of my pal, Babe.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Eugene. Bill didn’t know why, but he could picture Eugene on the other end just rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s doing pretty alright now, I think.”

“He wasn’t before?”

“I had to pull him out of a crashed car,” Eugene said simply.

“Yeah,” Bill mumbled, looking around for a piece of paper and a pen. Finding one, he continued. “So where do you live by the way?”

“What?”

“I need to check up on Babe.”

“Oh, ok.” Eugene listed the street and city he was located in. “When do you plan on coming down.”

“Sometime.”

“Ok.”

“Just make sure Babe stays in one place. I don’t need to be searching the entire Gulf Coast for him. He tends to cause accidents and shit.”

Bill was certain he heard Eugene chuckle on the other end. “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

“Alright. Nice talking to you, Eugene. And thanks for taking care of Babe.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Can you put Babe back on the line?”

Instead of a muffled call for someone’s name, there was just a jumbled mess of static sounds like someone was getting handed the phone. “It’s Babe,” said Babe.

“Stay there and don’t do anything stupid,” Bill said. “See you later.” And with that, Bill hung up.

Bill instantly remembered his food, or lack therefore, and headed to the fridge. Inside, he saw a few more bags of mozzarella cheese and ricotta cheese. And he knew that he didn’t use up all the pasta. He might need to borrow some sauce from his neighbor, but that was no problem.

Sure, he could order some Chinese, but Bill Guarnere was no quitter.

“Round two,” he said to himself before grabbing another bag of mozzarella cheese.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of my new year's resolutions was not do things halfway and finish what I started, so I'm not letting this go, plot or no.
> 
> Introducing a new character! Also, I didn't know this guy was from the south before adding. You learn something new everyday lol
> 
> Also, I guess I'll be adding new characters to the tags whenever they show up.

Babe ended up spending the night. There wasn’t really much else he could do. He was just going to continue sleeping on the couch but Gene seemed disturbed by the idea, practically ordering him into his bedroom. Something about him needing proper rest, as if Babe wasn’t completely fine with the couch idea.

He ended up sleeping hours before the other two did and waking up long after Gene had left for the day. Renée was sitting inside the living room. The television was off and she was surrounded by open books, taking a whole bunch of notes. 

“I wanna go out. Is there any place good around here?”

Renée tapped her pencil against an open notebook, chewing her lip in thought. “There’s a record shop,” she said, finally.

That’s how Babe ended up inside the record shop. There was nothing amiss about the shop in question, not that Babe was expecting anything strange. It had the look most record shops had, kind of rustic and aged, but in an appealing way.

The doorbell rang when he opened the door. Babe had every intention of finding an Iron Maiden album, buying it, and leaving. He’d probably give it to Bill as a gag Christmas gift on account of how much his friend hated metal.

That would have been the case if he hadn’t seen the strange man.

Babe felt the man’s presence before he laid eyes on him. It was the cold and staticy feeling he tended to get when a ghost was nearby. It reminded him of pins and needles, except it covered everything from his arms to the back of his neck. Babe cursed under his breath when he felt it, wishing that the ghosts could fuck off for maybe an entire month before bothering him again.

He turned around and he didn’t see a ghost, but a man. He was young, Babe first noticed. He always noticed the ages of ghosts first. It was a feeling of comfort that he began to learn ever since the first ghost; having the knowledge that a restless spirit had at least lived a long and full life made Babe feel marginally better. Not that this was a ghost and that was confusing as hell.

Babe didn’t realize that he was staring until the man in questioned spoke up. His dark eyebrows drew together and he stopped flipping through the records in front of him. “You need something, man?”

“What?” Babe asked, blinking and scratching the back of his neck. This man, the not-a-ghost looked weird. Objectively, Babe could tell that he was a young guy with dark brown hair neatly combed to the side. He was looking at him oddly with large brown eyes. The man was pale, but not necessarily because he was dead or something. He was frowning, Babe noticed. But, beyond that, the not-a-ghost looked ghostly in some ways. Especially in the way he looked blurry around the edges, as if he was barely there. Or in the way he almost seemed to glow with a flickering internal light. Those weren’t traits you found in normal everyday people.

The thing that freaked him out the most was the fact that he couldn’t See the cause of death. That was always noticeable, from the first ghost he had ever seen. It never mattered what it was. Bullet to a bleeding heart, knife to a bleeding stomach. Even poison in the system of a ghost’s body gave off a nauseating yellow glow. But with this guy, he couldn’t see anything. And he had no idea what that meant.

“You’re staring. At me. Why’re you staring at me. You wanna quit that?”

“No, you just gotta little—” Babe shook his head, his pitch slightly raised. He fucking hoped he didn’t look as freaked out as he sounded. “There’s something—um—can I talk to you? Outside?”

“Why?” the man asked.

“Good question,” Babe said, the search for the Iron Maiden album completely forgotten. “It’s a little, no, it’s a lot important.”

The man gave him another funny look before giving a long sigh and shrugging. “Sure. Whatever. Let me pay for this first, okay?” The man held up a album. The Knicks, it read.

“That’s fine, kid.”

The man made a face at the “kid” comment, but continued on his way.

Babe walked outside the store, but not before he saw the strange man interact with the woman at the cash register. That simple interaction confirmed that the man was corporeal, that it wasn’t just him that could talk to him. But it explained nothing about why he looked and felt the way he looked and felt.

Babe was pacing outside of the building when the other man exited the store. The white plastic holding the album was wrapped around one of his wrists and his arms were crossed. His pale skin looked even paler underneath the light of the hot summer sun, although his cheeks were red in some places.

“So,” the man began in his southern drawl. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah,” Babe said, nodding. “I’m Babe, by the way.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Babe?”

“I said that, didn’t I?” Babe said. “What’s yours?”

“John.”

“Ok, see, I’m just gonna cut to the chase right here, ‘k?” Babe said, a hand going through his red hair while the other hand gestured at the man standing in front of him. “Don’t take this personal, John, but you’re kinda freakin’ me out.”

“I have to be honest, I have no idea how to respond to that.” John shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with being almost cornered by the redhead. “Is there something on my face? That’s why you’ve been staring at me all weird?”

“No, it’s not that. Are you sick or something.”

“Am I sick?”

“Stop repeating what I said, kid. Keep up.”

“No, I’m not sick.”

“You got any enemies of some kind?”

“No.”

“Do you—”

“What’s the big deal, anyway?” John demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“You randomly stare at me and then you wanna talk to me for whatever reason and then you’re interrogating me about weird shit? What’s up with that?”

“If I told you the truth, you’d think it was crazy.”

“No offense, Babe,” John said, awkwardly smiling. “But I already think you’re crazy.”

Babe sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Okay. Brace yourself. And don’t do something stupid like run off. I’m doing something important here.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I see ghosts. I’ve been seeing them for years. Don’t freak out.”

John was silent for a few moments and every moment made Babe tense up a little more. He hadn’t even told anyone about his Seeing thing, save Bill. But that hardly counted because he told Bill everything. He hadn’t even really told Gene or  Renée about it despite seeing Gene do his weird healing thing.

John spoke again. “Now, what can possibly be crazy about that?”

“C’mon, don’t start with that.”

“Prove it, then,” John demanded.

Babe shrugged and looked around. “I ain’t from here, okay? Just take me to a place that’s haunted or something and I’ll tell you everything you need to know about everyone that happens to be there. You choose.”

John made a sort of breathy chuckle. “You’re serious?”

“Totally serious.”

“Okay. I wasn’t doing anything important today, so I could use a short road trip. Spend an afternoon with a crazy man at a haunted house.”

“I ain’t crazy.”

“Sure, Babe.”

* * *

The haunted house was actually haunted and it was a pleasant surprise for Babe. There had been many a time where he and Bill had ventured off to reportedly haunted houses up in Philly, but some of those houses suffered from nothing more than old creaky floorboards and scurrying rodents, not actual ghosts. Or, sometimes they’d attend a tour of some haunted sights only for Babe to become disappointed when the “ghosts” in question were nothing more than strategically-placed devices that would move around with a button the tour guides would press.

From experience, Babe had learned that real haunted houses were rarely ever filled with occupants that tried to drive out unwanted wanderers. Ghosts were nothing more than displaced spirits. Sometimes, and Babe felt that these cases were the worst, they lived in a state of perpetual repetition, unaware that they died and simply repeating the motions of their last living day. More often than not, however, ghosts were mere observers, aware of their death but still just as curious as they had been while they were alive. Some of the ghosts that Babe had met had been around since the 19th century and they were always fascinated by the new technology on Earth. Sure, they might knock over vases or break ornaments or something, but it was usually to get a better look at something, not to intentionally scare someone.

Ghosts rarely went out of their way to bother people. Unless the person’s name was Babe Heffron.

The house, John explained on the way there, used to be home to a family. John refused to give out details, like how the family died

“If you can do what you said you can do,” John said as they walked towards the front steps of the dark yellow house, “then you can figure that all out by yourself with your ESP.”

“My “ESP”?”

“Extra-special powers,” John smirked. “Keep up.”

The outside of the small house was covered by thick green kudzu. The plant almost appeared to consume the house, hardly leaving a single patch of wood uncovered. Here and there were purple grape-smelling flowers. The steps creaked underneath Babe’s foot.

“Is this stable?”

“Should be,” Julian said. “People frequent this place sometimes, on account of it being haunted.”

Babe hmmed in response and headed up the steps, trying not to flinch at every creak. It wasn’t too outlandish to imagine that his foot could go through one of the wooden steps.

Babe opened the door in front of him. He coughed at the smell.

“The fuck is that stench?” Babe coughed around the sour air.

“It’s nature, man.” Julian was walking behind him. “That’s the smell of heat and plants and animal droppings.”

“It’s disgusting,” Babe said. He walked around the inside of the house. It was totally abandoned. John hadn’t even caved to let him know how long the place had been abandoned, but the exterior of the house seemed pretty old. Maybe 1950s or something. The flower-print wallpaper was curled and halfway peeled off the wall in some places, brown with age. Green plants, kudzu probably, sprouted inside from the window and covered two corners of the room. The hardwood floor was caked with mud and covered in footprints, probably from other curious passersbys. There was a sofa, but the cushions were gone. A lamp was knocked over on the ground. A faded painting hung on the wall.

“See any ghosts?” John asked.

“Give me a moment,” Babe muttered. He walked around, trying to avoid walking on anything. At the other end of the room was the kitchen. He could only tell by the stove since it was empty beside that. He was fairly certain that no one would put a stove in the bedroom.

There was a hallway to his left. The feeling came to him when he walked closer towards it. The same frigid pins and needles sensation covered his skin, more intense than it was with John. Babe took a deep breath and continued walking.

He blinked and there they were. Two kids, a boy and a girl, sat on the floor in the middle of the hallway. Both of them had curly blonde hair and were wearing some old clothes. The boy wore a sailor outfit and a hat, like he was the human version of Donald Duck. 

Babe’s heart clenched. It never stopped hurting when he Saw ghost children. They hadn’t even begun to live before they were cruelly taken from the world. 

They were bleeding, he noticed. There was a gaping red hole in the middle of the little girl’s forehead and blood poured from it, unceasing. The boy was bleeding from his chest. His sailor outfit had a misshapen red circle above where his heart would be. 

“There’s two kids,” Babe told John. The children watched the redhead with wide green eyes. “Probably six years old. The girl was shot in the head and the boy was shot in the chest.”

“Holy shit,” he heard John say. “You got that. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Babe said. The girl was pointing down the hall. Babe could see the face of someone peeking outside a door. It was a young girl. She was older than the other kids, but not by much as far as Babe could tell. Her hair was cut short, stopping at her chin and she stared at Babe with those same green eyes. Babe noticed the blood falling from the corner of her mouth before he noticed her torn neck. It was probably the result of a bullet through her neck.

“Older girl. Maybe ten? Eleven?” Babe walked down the hall, closely avoiding the ghostly children. It probably looked weird from John’s perspective. Babe recalled Bill demonstrating what it looked to him. His friend had stumbled around unseen obstacles and, at the end, pointed at Babe as if saying that that was what he looked like. 

“What about her?” John asked. 

“Shot in the neck I think. Fuckin' massacre here.” Babe walked closer to the girl. “Short blonde hair. I don’t know her name. And I ain’t gonna ask you to tell me either, ‘k? That’d just be rude on account of your neck.” The last part was directed at the girl. She nodded.

“Who you talking to?”

“The girl.”

“Oh.”

“Hey,” Babe said, looking at the young kids. “Either of you talk? Wanna tell me your names?”

“ _ Simeon _ ,” the young girl with the curly hair said. She pointed at her brother in the sailor outfit. She talked in that same kind of voice all ghosts had, forming words without air. It still unsettled Babe. “ _ Evelina _ ,” she said, pointing at the girl with the short hair. “ _ Mon nom est Adele. _ ”

“What’s your sources say about a Simeon, an Evelina, and an Adele?”

“Wow.” John headed down the hallway, unable to see the seated children.

“Hey! Watch out for the kids!”

“What? Where?” John said, stepping through the unfazed children. Their images shimmered when his long legs unknowingly kicked through them. The boy swatted at his legs.

“You just walked through Simeon and Adele.”

“Sorry, Simeon and Adele,” John said, looking down at the floor. “And, yeah, you got the names down. I didn’t know they were blonde, just how they died. You got that right, anyway.”

Babe nodded, pleased with himself for convincing the man. “Okay. These kids probably got parents somewhere. You got parents?”

The young girl said something again, but Babe was at a loss.

“What?” Babe asked.

The girl repeated the same string of words.

“What’d they say?”

“I don’t know. She’s speaking French. I can’t speak French.”

The girl stood and put her hands on her hips, shaking her head as if she were frustrated with Babe.

“Hey, what’s your problem, huh? I don’t know what you’re saying. How’s that my problem?”

“Who’re you talking to?”

“Adele!”

“Oh.”

Adele appeared to get upset and she stomped her tiny foot against the ground. A painting that was hanging in the hallway fell to the floor.

John jumped and shrieked.

Babe jumped as well and was relieved he held his shriek in.

“The painting fell!” John shouted. “I’m done. You have me convinced. I need to get out because this place is giving me the damn creeps!”

“You wanna leave?”

“Yes! Yes, I want to leave!”

“You got anything with you?”

“What?” John asked. He was already out the hallway and was walking to the door when Babe asked him that. Turning around, he shrugged. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s nice to leave something behind for the ghosts.”

“It’s nice to leave something behind?”

“You’re repeating things again, kid.”

“Wanna stop with the “kid” thing?”

“Look,” Babe folded his hands together, thinking about how to best explain this. “We just walked around through these people’s home completely unannounced. How’d you feel if someone went through your place uninvited?”

“They’re ghosts!”

“Ghosts are people too. Now, c’mon. You got anything with you or not?”

John gave him another funny look, not unlike the one he gave him in the record shop. Making a defeated sigh, John went through his pockets. “I’ve got nothing. But I have a map inside my car. That’s something, right?”

“That’s fine. Go get it.”

John ran off at an inhuman speed. He quickly came back, but he was unwilling to re-enter the house, opting instead to call for Babe from the front door. The map was in his hand and he held it out for Babe to take.

“Get a grip. They’re just ghost kids,” Babe said. “They’re kinda adorable.”

“Forget that, man,” was all John said.

Back in the hallway, Babe placed the map on the ground. It was a tourist map of sights in southern Louisiana. It had bright colors and gaudy advertisements. Seemed like it would entertain ghost children just fine. Sure, the writing was in English, but Babe figured that there were enough pictures on the glossy paper for the words not to matter as much.

“Have fun with that, guys.” Babe said. He turned around and nearly jumped when the older girl, Evelina, was standing in front of him, leaning towards him with a determined look in her eyes. She pointed angrily at her neck, still dripping blood down her white collar.

Babe understood the meaning immediately. “Look, I’ll be back okay. I need to deal with things, but I’ll be back. I promise.”

She leveled him with a glare that obviously meant “you better”.

Babe walked out of the hallway and turned once more. “See you guys later.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you can see ghosts!” John’s voice was loud above the already loud car radio which he insisted would stay at the set volume. “That’s bitchin’!”

“It’s definitely something,” Babe replied.

“What!”

“I said it sure is!” Babe shouted. It felt like Babe was going to melt into his seat. John’s air conditioning was broken and the wind was barely there. He couldn’t understand how anyone could, in good conscious, live down here.

“It’s awesome! You’re like a medium!” The screeching sound of a guitar solo blared from the radio.

"I wish I had a cool thing! Like invulnerability! How 'bout that!"

“Sounds interesting! Turn at the light!”

John roughly jerked the car to the right. Without meaning to, he cut off another driver. The sound of blaring horns came from the angry driver.

John’s face pinched. “Calm down, asshole!” He continued to drive

“It’s down the neighborhood to the left!”

John followed Babe’s instruction and they continued to drive closer to Gene and  Renée’s place. With one hand, he turned the radio down. Babe probably made a look because John shrugged. “It’s rude to have you radio blaring in a neighborhood.”

Babe considered this and nodded. “Fair enough.”

“So, earlier when you said that I looked weird. What do you mean by that?”

Babe tapped his hand against his thigh in a repeating rhythm. “It’s fuckin' hard to explain, dude.”

“Try me.”

“You didn’t believe the ghost thing.”

“I didn’t believe the ghost thing at first. But I was willing to see you prove it. But you were looking at me weird at the record store so I want to know what’s up with me.”

Babe’s mouth twisted as he tried to think of the best phrasing. “You’re...blurry.”

“I’m blurry?”

“I’m trying my best to explain this, okay!”

“I know.”

“It’s like you’re smudged around the edges, not clear like everyone else. And you’re like static. And cold.”

“What’s that mean?”

“When I’m around ghosts, I get a feeling like static on me and it’s cold. Like when you touch a tv and you feel the static? But it’s all over me.”

John was silent for a while, nodding at Babe’s words. “Like when you’re around a ghost?”

“Not as much, though,” Babe explained. “Like, the feeling’s still there, but it’s not a lot.”

John let out a deep breath. “So I feel like a ghost to you?”

“Not really. A little? I guess? Fuck.” Babe pinched his nose. “I don’t fuckin' know. This is new to me.”

“So I could die?”

“Everyone dies.”

John glared at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

It was Babe’s turn to be silent for a while. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. "Whatever the case, I ain't gonna let anything bad happen to you."

“What next?”

“Huh?”

“What direction next?” John pointed at the road signs in front of him. “Where to?”

“Oh. It’s another left.”

* * *

Renée opened the door for them. She was smiling and white flour covered her hands and her chin. However, her smile slowly faded at the expressions John and Babe were wearing. She shook her head. “What happened this time?”

“Renée, meet John. John, meet Renée.”

John shook Renée’s hand. “John Julian. Pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

“I’ll explain everything inside,” Babe said. With that, he and John entered the house and, the whole while, Babe tried to understand what the fuck was going on.


End file.
